


Shadowlands

by Sakon76



Category: Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-10
Updated: 2019-01-15
Packaged: 2019-10-07 16:45:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 15,624
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17369657
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sakon76/pseuds/Sakon76
Summary: Jack has a favor to ask of Death





	1. Deathly Desires

**Shadowlands**  
Part 1: Deathly Desires  
by K. Stonham  
first released 18th December, 2012

December, 2017

Jack had met Mort before. Of course he had; people die in winter, sometimes out in the icy wastes, caught in a blizzard. Which wasn't always Jack's fault, but sometimes it had been. And unable to help the stranded individuals, unable to even _touch_ them, the only thing Jack had ever been able to do was stay with them until death came.

So, he'd met Mort plenty of times, and heard more about her through the immortals' gossip vine. Little things like her weird predilection for playing games under certain circumstances.

It had never before occurred to Jack that Mort must have been present at his own death, nor that the Man in the Moon made a... deal? Arrangement? Something of the sort, anyway, that allowed for Jack to stay out of the afterlife, and become a spirit on Earth.

Now, though, Jack was thinking on that, and thinking hard. He didn't know the details, of course, and was pretty sure Manny wouldn't tell him if he asked. The other Guardians, Jack thought, didn't really have anything of the sort. No hard stop, no sharp delineation between before and after, alive and spirit. He had the impression that their transformations into immortals were something more gradual, perhaps even something that had gone unnoticed until years after it happened.

So he wasn't sure if any of them even really knew Death. Christmas and Easter, they wouldn't really see children dying, would they? Especially not Bunny. Sandman... well, there were so many dreamers; did Sandy count them all? Toothiana was the most likely to know Death, unless she really did keep the teeth of dead children forever, which Jack thought would be a little creepy. But then he'd never quite understood Tooth's obsession with teeth. Especially not her obsession with his, which she was never going to get to collect since they were all permanent teeth.

The thing was, though, even though Jack _knew_ Death, he didn't know how to find her. He could hang around a hospital, waiting, but that was callous and cruel and he wasn't that kind of person. Too, there was the fact that Mort didn't take care of every death personally any more than he was present for every winter snowstorm. So finding her would be a dice roll at best.

In the end, he just waited until the next time their paths crossed.

* * *

A few years after Jack had gotten his memories back, been sworn in as a Guardian, and finally, finally become visible to children, he met Death again.

It was a snowy winter in New York City, and he was whirling a skydance of snowflakes for the amusement of the children below, when he caught a glimpse of a long black cloak billowing in the wind.

With a wave to the children (some of whom, judging by their return waves, saw him, and some of whom didn't), Jack set off, following Death.

He caught up with her at the Brooklyn Bridge, where he landed next to Mort atop the eastern tower. "Frost," she greeted him, pulling back the hood of her cloak to reveal skin as pale as his own, eyes so dark a brown as to be nearly black, and long straight chestnut hair. She looked to be in her mid-twenties, and underneath the cloak, he'd heard, dressed like a goth version of Stevie Nicks. But mostly she kept the cloak on. With the hood up, it apparently saved her on arguing with the dead.

"Mort," he replied, nodding. "Working?"

She smiled, but it was a curiously tight thing. "Always." She nodded at the bridge below. "Jumper, in about three minutes."

Jack loved his job. He'd never been quite sure how Mort felt about hers.

"Congratulations, by the way," she said. "Heard about your promotion."

Jack grinned and ducked his head a little. "Thanks."

She studied him. "You want something."

He straightened. "It's that obvious?"

Mort quirked an eyebrow. "Most people don't follow me unless they want something."

"You caught me." Jack sighed, leaning on his staff. "What happens to people after they die?"

"The shadowlands." Her face was calm.

"Is that like heaven, hell, purgatory...?"

Death shrugged. "It depends on the person, and what, deep down, they think they deserve in the afterlife. Some don't stay there long; they reincarnate. It's all in the state of mind, really."

Jack sighed again. "And if someone like me wanted to talk to someone there?"

"I got sick of people asking for that a couple thousand years ago, Frost." Her head tilted slightly. He wasn't sure if her expression was curious or calculating. "For you, though... I can arrange it. But it'll cost you."

Jack felt like grinning. "How much?"

"Not how much. _What_."

"Okay," Jack corrected himself, "what'll it cost me?"

Mort looked away, briefly scanning the bridge below for her scheduled jumper, then studied the chill gray waters of the Hudson Bay. "I'm sick of chess and gin rummy."

"Have you considered LARPs?" Jack offered.

She rolled her eyes, her irritation the clearest emotion Jack had ever been able to read off her. "Video games are popular these days. I want to try my hand at them."

Jack blinked.

"I can't exactly have a GameCube set up in the shadowlands," she snapped at him. "Electricity doesn't run to there."

"And you can't power it by...?" He waggled his fingers to mime _magic_.

"No. I've tried." She crossed her arms and looked away.

"Hmm." He leaned on his staff, thinking. _Jamie_ had a video game setup, and would probably let Jack borrow it for a good cause.... "You won't kill a system just by touching it, will you?"

"Do you ice everything you touch?" she retorted. "Come on, Frost, you know we can keep it in check."

Jack shrugged. "I know I can. Didn't know if you were different."

"Mm." Her eyes locked onto a man in a shabby brown suit, wearing one of those fleece-lined hats with earflaps. "There he is."

Jack watched in silence as the man walked out to the middle span of the bridge, looked around furtively once or twice, and pulled something, a picture, from his jacket pocket. The man kissed the image, then reverently put it away again.

Jack looked away as the man climbed over the railing.

Mort tensed, then relaxed. Jack hadn't even heard a splash.

"He'll be all right now," she said, and tugged her hood back up. "I've got to go collect him, Frost."

"I'll see what I can set up," Jack said. "Got a way for me to contact you?"

Death hesitated, then tugged off one earring. It was a dangling silver spiderweb. She handed it to him. "Tap on it when you're ready. _Don't_ break it," she said, and was gone.

Jack stood on top of the tower for a minute longer, then tucked the earring into his hoodie pocket and flew off himself, trying not to think about winter plunges into icy water.

Buffalo was due for a good snowstorm.

* * *

Jamie, now fifteen, looked unimpressed by Jack's request. He sat at his desk chair, arms crossed, expression mulish.

"Oh, come on, I never ask you for anything!" Jack groaned.

"You do too. You ask me to ditch all the time, and sometimes you talk me into it, and then I get into trouble."

Okay, Jack had to concede that point. "Yeah, but it's worth it, right?"

Jamie unbent enough to grin. "Yeah, it is." He studied Jack's face, took a long breath, and sighed. "Tell me exactly why you want to borrow my PS4 - which, by the way, I spent six months saving up for - and this time, leave in all the long boring parts you usually try to skip."

"You sure? It's a _really_ long story."

"I'm sure."

Jack sighed and slumped into the window seat. Where to start? At the beginning, he guessed. "First off... you know I'm dead, right?"

Jamie straightened up, expression shocked. " _No_. You never mentioned _that_."

Jack sighed again, and blew his bangs up with a huff of air. "Long backstory short, I lived here in Burgess, about three hundred and, mm, ten years ago or so. Normal colonial kid, brown hair, brown eyes, normal parents, a little sister like Sophie. Except then she and I went skating on the pond in winter. And the ice wasn't quite thick enough." He hefted his staff momentarily. "I used this to get her to the thicker ice, then the pond broke under me. I drowned."

Jamie looked green. "In--"

Jack nodded. "In that pond, yeah."

"Oh, Christ." Jamie's head was in his hands.

Jack regarded him for a minute. "It was a long time ago, Jamie."

"That doesn't make it better!"

Jack ignored the pepperiness. "Anyway, a day or two later, the Man in the Moon pulled me up out of the ice and made me into what I am now." He fingered his bangs. "White hair and all."

"How the... how the hell are you so calm about this?!"

Jack looked levelly at the teenager. "It was over three hundred years ago, Jamie."

"Yeah, but--"

"I've seen your report cards. You don't care about much else that happened three hundred years ago. Why do you care about this?"

"Because I know you!" Jamie yelled, then looked away, face flushed.

Jack stood and knelt down in front of Jamie's chair. "Jamie." The teenager looked at him. "If it hadn't happened, you _wouldn't_ know me."

"That's... different," Jamie mumbled, but by his tone, he was at least taking Jack's point.

"So." Jack pushed to his feet and went back to the window. "I get reborn without a scrap of memory from my human life, spend three hundred some-odd years railing at the Moon for not telling me jack, and try to keep myself amused and from falling into the pit of despair. Then, one day, Manny decides the Guardians need some extra help, picks me, and you pretty much know the rest."

"Which is still not telling me why you want to borrow my gaming system."

Jack sighed, ran a hand through his hair, then stuffed his hand into his pocket. "Not having my memories for most of my life was probably a good thing. It would've killed me to watch my family grow old and die without ever seeing me. But now that I do remember? I want to see them again. Just to make sure they were happy, to make sure they're okay with what I became."

"Closure," Jamie said.

"Yeah."

Jamie hesitated, then spoke. "Um, Jack, if that was three hundred years ago, they're all dead."

Jack smiled slowly. "Did you know that Death runs around like I do?"

Jamie's eyes grew wide. "Jack...."

"Oh, it's okay." Jack waved off Jamie's worry. "She's cool. We've known each other for a long time. Thing is, though, I asked her. And she said she could let me see them again. But she wants something."

"My PS4?" Jamie looked downright skeptical.

"Well, not yours in particular. But... you've heard that Death plays games sometimes, right?"

Jamie nodded. "And if you win, she lets you live."

"She said she's sick of card games and chess. And she doesn't exactly have a plug for a game system in the shadowlands."

"North has electricity at the Pole," Jamie pointed out.

"The Pole is a real place. I think Mort's realm is another reality or something."

"So let me get this straight." Jamie ticked off his points on his fingers. "You want to see your family again. So you make a deal with Death. This deal involves the use of my PS4." He looked up. "This had better not be a scenario where I die if I lose a game, Jack."

"Cross my heart," Jack promised.

Jamie was still hesitant. "I dunno...."

"Jamie." Jack's voice was very quiet, and very serious. "What would you do, if it was your mom and Sophie that you'd never gotten to see again?"

Jamie was very quiet for a minute. "That's playing dirty, Jack." He took a breath. "But fine. Christmas break's next week; I can spend as much time showing her the ropes as she wants."

"Great!" Jack tackled Jamie in a hug.

"Jack!" After a minute, Jamie stopped flailing and hugged back. "Just don't ever say I never got you anything for Christmas."

* * *

**Author's Note:** I didn't want to borrow either Pratchett or Gaiman's versions of Death, so for this I made up my own. I'm still pondering whether or not she has a younger brother named "Taxes." :) Unfortunately, I end up with the niggling suspicion that she may look like one of those people from the Twilight movie posters. Well, whatever. Also, I wanted to do a Jack-tells-Jamie-his-backstory thing, but most of the writers I've seen do so, set it only a year or so after the film. Ten or eleven, though really seems too young to find out your best friend/big brother drowned _in that pond you skate on all the time_....


	2. Deathly Destination

**Shadowlands**  
Part 2: Deathly Destination  
by K. Stonham  
first released 19th December, 2012

"You're doing WHAT?!" Bunnymund's shout echoed around the Warren. "Are you out of your frozen mind?!"

Jack unclasped his hands from over his ears. "You make it sound like a big deal," he complained.

Bunnymund pointed a boomerang at him. "You have no idea what you're getting yourself into. The shadowlands aren't _meant_ for living beings. Death hasn't let anyone in there for thousands of years."

"So she said. But I'm not exactly living, now am I?"

Bunnymund glared at him. Then he tucked away the boomerang, stalked forward, and grabbed Jack's arm. He roughly shoved the sleeve up and placed his fingers on the underside of Jack's wrist. After a moment he looked up, green eyes meeting Jack's blue. "You've got a pulse," he said quietly. "You may have _been_ dead, but you're not anymore."

"Oh." Jack felt disquieted for a moment. He'd long thought of himself as alive in a halfway sense, then, after getting his memories back, had assumed he was something closer to a ghost, but now.... _Not important,_ he decided, brushing the matter off. "So why do you think this is a bad idea?" he asked.

Bunny stared at him for a minute, then threw up his hands and stalked away. "Why would he _ever_ have common sense?" the Pooka implored no one in particular. "Why does he always have to poke at things that're better left alone?"

"I _asked_ why you're saying it's a bad idea," Jack snapped in response, standing. "If you're not going to tell me, I can just leave--"

Bunny whirled back toward him. "Don't. You. Dare."

Jack sat back down, waiting, as Bunnymund stalked back toward him.

"Do you know _anything_ about the shadowlands?" Bunnymund asked.

"Mort said people there pretty much live in whatever scenario they think they deserve," Jack offered. Which kind of worried him, because he didn't know what his family thought they deserved. Singing hosannas at the feet of God, maybe? Seemed boring to Jack, but then, his afterlife would probably be pretty different anyway....

Bunnymund huffed. "For living beings, the shadowlands are a trap," he said. "It'll be very pretty, and very pleasant, and it'll make you want to _stay_ , Frostbite."

Jack shook his head. "I don't want to stay. I just want to visit."

"Keep that in mind when you get there," Bunnymund warned. "The place has rules, like anywhere else. Don't eat anything. Don't drink anything. And don't try to take anything with you when you leave. You break those rules, you _can't_ leave. Ever."

Jack nodded.

"And please tell me you're telling someone about this cockeyed plan of yours."

"I'm telling you."

Bunnymund stared at Jack for a minute, then groaned, falling backward onto the soft grass. "Why me?" he asked no one in particular again.

Jack hopped off his stone and walked over to the Pooka. "North would have a fit. Tooth would have a bigger fit. And Sandy just plain wouldn't even let me try."

"Why is this so important to you?" Bunnymund asked.

Jack drew a soft breath and let it go again before answering. "They're my family. I just want to know that they were okay - that they _are_ okay."

"Family, huh?" Bunnymund stared up at the high high ceiling of the Warren for a long minute. Then he too sighed. "Fine, Frostbite. I won't tell the others. But you don't come popping back in by Christmas, and I _will_ tell them. We'll storm the ruddy place if we have to, and you will spend eternity regretting your stupidity. Understand?"

"Understood."

* * *

"Ready?" Jack asked.

Still looking nervous, Jamie nonetheless managed a shrug. "As I'll ever be."

"Okay, let's do this thing." Jack pulled the silver earring out of his hoodie pocket and drummed his fingers on the web.

"You're _sure_ this isn't going to kill me?" Jamie asked one last time.

"Positive."

A groan from outside the window startled both of them. "Please don't tell me that stupid school of thought hasn't died a painful death yet."

"Hey, Mort." Jack pulled the window open, and Death clambered inside. She pushed back the hood of her cloak and looked around Jamie's room curiously, her eyes landing last on the boy himself. "Mort, this is my friend Jamie Bennett. Jamie, Mort, otherwise known as Death."

"Um, hi," Jamie said. Then, "What stupid school of thought?"

"I don't kill people," Mort said. "That usually happens on its own. I just make sure they go where they're supposed to, afterward."

"'Usually'." Jamie focused on that one word.

"Okay, _sometimes_ I kill them. When they're holding on way past their time and screwing up my schedule. Otherwise?" She shrugged. "Lemme see, by the way." She grabbed Jamie's left hand and turned it palm-side up. A fingernail, painted lavender, traced along a fold in the skin. "Long lifeline. You're good."

"Wait, palmistry works?" Jack asked, eyebrows high.

"If you're me, or a human with the gift, sure." Mort smirked. "Ninety-nine out of a hundred fortunetellers don't have the gift. So," she said brightly, "what do you have for me, Frost?"

"Use of my PS4," Jamie replied. "And I've got a week free from school if you want to run Rainbow Quest in two-player mode."

Mort's eyebrows raised high. "And what does Frost owe _you_ for this, Jamie Bennett?"

Jamie's eyes met Jack's. He smiled slightly. "Absolutely nothing."

Dark eyes flickered back and forth, examining the two, before finally coming back to settle on Jamie. "Oh, you're _that_ one."

"That one?" Jamie asked blankly.

"That one?" Jack asked equally blankly.

Death smiled, and it was a dark study in pleasure. "Let's just say you're not unknown," she told Jamie. "Now, Rainbow Quest?"

Jamie looked warily at Jack, as if wondering what rumors might be spreading in the immortal community, then shrugged and walked over to his small gaming center. He knelt, pulling out a handful of games. "I have Rainbow Quests seven through thirteen. Which one do you want to start with?"

Mort perched on the edge of his bed. "Which one do you recommend?"

"Well, thirteen's the newest, but eleven's my favorite. It has the best story."

"Eleven it is."

"Jack said you'd never used a PS4 before, right?" Jamie fished out a pair of controllers. He handed one to Mort. "There's a tutorial first, so we can run through that so you can get the hang of it."

"Sweet." She rocked the controller back and forth in her hands, then looked at Jack. "Did you want to do your little visit now or later, Frost?"

"Um."

"Go for now," Jamie advised. "I've only got two controllers and you've played eleven with me already anyway. And that way you can be back by Christmas." He bit his lip. "Unless you wanted to spend Christmas with them."

"Do the dead even have Christmas?" Jack asked Mort.

She shrugged. "The shadowlands calendar drifts. It hasn't lined up with Earth's for a long time."

"Right. I... guess I'll go now."

"Keep my earring with you," Mort said. "It's your passage token. To get there, go jump in that pool you drowned in. To get back out, the same. Do you know the rules?"

"No eating, no drinking, no trying to take anything out with me," Jack listed. "Anything else?"

Dark eyes studied him. "Don't stay too long," Death advised. "The longer you stay, the harder it is to come back."

* * *

Jack stood on the shore of the pond. It was frozen over, with a couple of thin-ice warning signs posted around the edge. The Burgess kids had been in the habit of ignoring those for several years now, completely due to Jack's presence.

He really, really did not want to break the ice and dive in.

It had been late morning when he'd left Jamie's house. Jack had done a fast lap of the globe, stirring up a few small storms. He'd caught up with Sandman along the way. He'd dropped in briefly at the Pole to perch in the rafters, snickering at the last-minute chaos. He'd visited the Tooth Palace, flirting with Tooth and her fairies until she flushed and they swooned. And he'd finally hit the Warren, to warn Bunnymund of his intentions.

"Having second thoughts?" the Pooka asked him now, having accompanied Jack surface-side. It was night in Burgess, and the park was clear of stragglers.

Jack turned the earring over and over in his hand. "Just remembering drowning."

"Hey." A furry gray hand landed on his shoulder. "You're immortal now. You can't drown, Frostbite."

"Doesn't make nerving myself up any easier." Jack took a deep breath. His fist clenched around the talisman. "Right. I'm going to do this."

"You don't have to, mate."

Jack looked Bunnymund in the eye. "If it was your family, wouldn't you?"

Bunny looked away. He sighed a long, regretful sigh. "My family's long gone, Frostbite. Leaving them in peace is only thing I can do."

... _Oh_.

"Sor--" Jack started to say, but Bunny cut him off.

"Long gone," he repeated. "No use in stirring up old ghosts anymore. But my family isn't your family, and I'm not you. If you need to do this, Jack... I'm behind you."

"Thanks," Jack murmured.

He steadied himself, took a breath, and walked out onto the ice. It was thick beneath his feet, solid. Like it hadn't been that day.

He remembered where he'd been when the ice broke. He walked there now, stood just before the spot.

Jack frowned, clenched his hand tight around Death's talisman.

Raising his staff, he slammed its butt against the ice, shattering it.

Before he could have second thoughts, Jack jumped in.

* * *

**Author's Note:** ...I am just picturing Jamie spending his entire winter break playing various of the Rainbow Quest games with Mort. And his mom coming in with some snacks for him, and never noticing the second controller, on his far side, floating in the air. Mort's full name is in fact Morticia, BTW, and I'm trying hard not to have her be too Mary Sue-ish. Unfortunately, Death as an embodied character always seems to be a bit of a scene-stealer.


	3. Deathly Discussions

**Shadowlands**  
Part 3: Deathly Discussions  
by K. Stonham  
first released 22nd December, 2012

He swam for the surface, staff clenched in one hand, earring in the other. It seemed an incredible distance away. It seemed to take forever. It seemed--

Jack's head broke the surface, and he gasped for air.

Clear blue skies greeted him, the midday sun shining down on the pond.

Kicking into the air, Jack froze the water still on him, shook it off with a familiar crackling. It fell into the pond and melted quickly.

Looking around, he was amazed at all the deep, lush greenery. It was like the Warren--

No.

It was _summer_ here.

And Jack hadn't been welcome in summer in a very long time.

His breath frosted in the air as he fought not to panic and bolt north. This was the shadowlands, it wasn't Earth, there wouldn't be any summer spirits here to take umbrage.

He had Death's _token_. He was _allowed_ here.

Forcing down the panic, Jack looked down at the green depths below him, examining his reflection on the pond's surface. Still white-haired and blue-eyed. He breathed a sigh of relief, and stuffed Mort's earring into his pocket.

He let the whispering summer breezes (lazy little things, nothing like winter's gusts) push him above the trees. He cast about to get his bearings, and--

His mouth dropped open.

Except for it being in summer rather than winter, he _remembered_ this view.

It was Burgess, as he'd known it in life.

Swallowing, Jack let the breezes take him home.

* * *

Burgess was... well, not quite how Jack remembered it. There were more houses. And he flew over some fields that he _definitely_ didn't remember. He hid high up in the trees for a bit, watching. The people he saw looked familiar, some of them. Others he didn't recognize, except... that man looked sort of like his friend Adam. And that woman could have been Mary's older sister, except Mary had never had a sister.

Shaking off the not-quite-deja-vu, Jack finally landed silently on the ground and crept into the village. He stuck to the shadows; no one saw him. But that was his house there, _that one_ , and he could see heat shimmers and a wisp of smoke coming from the chimney. The door was wide open, letting in the summer light and air.

Taking a deep breath, steeling himself, Jack stepped into the doorway.

He couldn't breathe.

That was his _mother_ there, bending over the pot just slightly off the fire. He could smell her bread baking, filling the house with warmth and that indefinable sense he now realized meant _home_ to him.

"You're in early from the fields, Thomas--" she said, straightening and turning. She stopped cold when she saw Jack in the doorway.

Her mouth hung open. She looked, Jack thought, like she'd seen a ghost.

He swallowed against the tightness in his throat. "Hello, Mother," he said, and was surprised his voice didn't crack with the strain.

"...Jack?" she whispered.

He didn't know what to say, so he just nodded.

There wasn't ten feet between them, but somehow she ran it. Her arms closed tight around him. "Jack!"

Slowly, awkwardly, Jack returned the embrace. Then his eyes closed and his hands clenched in the fabric of her dress. He never, ever thought he'd be hugged by his mother again.

"I'm home," he said hoarsely.

She pulled back and looked at him, her brown eyes watering. And her voice was as hoarse as his own when Anne Frost asked, "Jack, what are you doing here?"

* * *

He sat down at the table that he hadn't sat at in over three hundred years. And, God, it was exactly the same. There was the scar he'd left on it when he was twelve, playing with his new penny knife. He remembered getting whipped for that. His staff was caught between his feet, leaned against his shoulder. He didn't dare let go of it now. This was too strange, too familiar. Maybe coming here wasn't a good idea--

His mother sat down opposite him, reached across the table, and took his hands in her own. He could only look at the contrast. His skin was so deathly pale against her summer-warmed color. And yet, if Bunnymund was to be believed, Jack was the one who was still alive.

"I'm sorry," he said, and it felt like he was apologizing for everything and nothing. "If I'd been more careful that day. If I'd checked the ice... if I'd thought to _lay down_ and spread out our weight...."

His mother squeezed his hands. "You did the best you could. And I am so very proud of what you did that day, and what you're doing now."

He stared. "You know about that?"

Anne nodded. "We can see through the veil, sometimes. When it's All Saints' Day in the living world, those of us who still have loved ones there can look in mirrors or glass, and see them." Her hands tightened on his again. "Though I would never have wished three hundred years of winter for you."

That confused Jack for a minute, because what was there not to love about winter? He'd _been_ part of winter for so long that his memories of the other seasons were hazy at best. His strongest impressions of spring and summer came from visiting the Warren and the Tooth Palace, and autumn was just that messy passing thing that gave him colored leaves to decorate in beautiful clean frost.

He honestly forgot, most of the time, that other people didn't love his season as well as he did. To his family, though, winter was a time of cold and carefully measuring out stored food, hoping it would last until the first spring crops. It was a time of worrying about hunger and sickness.

Of all the seasons for him to be caught in, Jack realized, his family would view winter as the worst.

Even if nothing else, it had the sin of being the season they lost him.

"Father is out in the fields?" he asked, changing the subject away from things they could not agree on.

His mother nodded. "He'll be coming in soon for dinner. You _will_ stay, won't you?" Her expression was pleading.

Jack smiled. "Of course I will."

* * *

Laying his staff atop his old bed, Jack helped his mother prepare the meal, setting the table for three. "Where is Pippa?" he asked.

"At her work," his mother replied. "We'll go visit her after dinner, if you'd like."

Jack blinked. "She's not coming here for dinner?"

"No, she dines with her husband--" His mother caught sigh of Jack's expression and stopped. "Jack, she grew up and married."

"Oh." He took a moment, the knowledge whirling up, settling into new shapes. "I-- I'm glad. I just, I only remember her as a ten-year-old."

"Oh, Jack." Anne set the plates down on the table and moved to hug him again. "I'm sorry. This must be so strange to you."

He took a breath, centering himself. "How does this place even work? Mort, I mean Death, said that everyone ends up where they subconsciously think they belong."

"Well, from my point of view, this is the time in my life when I was happiest." His mother smiled at him, and Jack really _looked_ at her for the first time.

His mother looked so young. Part of it, he realized, was not being careworn from worry over harvests and injuries. But part of it was that she looked as she had a year or two before he died. "Pippa wasn't happy as a child," he realized, speaking the thought aloud. "Because I died, and... tell me she didn't blame herself for that."

Anne's mouth thinned and she shook her head. "She was ten, Jack. Of course she did."

"I need to talk with her," Jack decided.

" _After_ dinner," his mother insisted.

He nodded. "Of course," and slipped the third plate from the stack when she turned to pick it up.

"What are you doing with that?" his mother asked, a laugh in her voice.

Jack put the place back atop the cupboard. "Don't waste the food on me," he said.

"But, Jack--"

He took a breath. "I'm not here to stay, Mother. I'm just here to visit for a bit. And that means I can't eat or drink anything, if I want to go back."

His mother slowly set the plates back on the table and reached for his arm. He let her, knowing what she was looking for.

"You still have a pulse," she said quietly, fingers against the underside of his wrist. Her eyes were wet with unshed tears when she looked back up at him. "I'd thought... I thought you'd finally come home to stay with us, Jack."

He shook his head. "I'm sorry. I can't, not yet. I have so many responsibilities in the other world. I can't just lay them down. And there are people there...." _Who would miss me,_ the words dried up in his throat, because five years on, he _still_ wasn't used to that.

Anne brushed at her eyes. "I know. It's so silly of me. What mother wishes their child dead? But when we came here, it was such a shock not to find you. And then when the mirrors let us see you, that first time, we almost didn't recognize you, didn't understand...."

"Heh." Jack fingered at his white hair. "I guess this must look pretty strange, from your point of view. For me, though... this was all I knew, for three hundred years. I didn't even remember I had a human life until pretty recently."

His mother stood still. " _That_ explains certain of your reprehensible behaviors I witnessed."

Jack winced. "I'm sorry?"

She sighed. "Well, it's over and done with. Now, help me dish up."

* * *

Thomas Frost arrived just as Anne was setting the second plate on the table. He looked taken aback to find a white-haired stranger in his home. Then, after a moment, his face cleared. "Jackson?" he whispered incredulously.

Jack managed a smile. "Hello, Father," he said, his voice almost as tremulous as it was when he'd greeted his mother.

He was caught up and almost crushed in a bear hug. His father had never seemed that physically imposing to Jack, but all his life Thomas Frost had worked with his hands, felling trees, ploughing and planting fields, building this very house. Relaxing into the hug, returning it, Jack gained sudden insight into why North's imposing strength made him feel safe.

His fingers tightened on his father's shirt. "I've missed you," he whispered.


	4. Deathly Debut

**Shadowlands**  
Part 4: Deathly Debut  
by K. Stonham  
first released 29th December, 2012

"You don't _need_ to go back to the fields, Thomas," Anne Frost told her husband. Her gaze slid sideways, to their son, sitting at the table looking amused at the discussion. The white hair and blue eyes were unnerving, but the small smirk was one she'd seen on Jackson's face any number of times, and that soothed her.

"If I don't--"

"He can't stay," Anne hissed. "And only God knows how long it will be before we see him again."

That gave her husband pause. "You're... not staying?" he asked Jack.

Jack pushed up from his seat. There was sorrow writ across his face, but he shook his head, resolute. "I can't, Father. I'm a Guardian, in the living world. I protect children. I can't just let that go."

"But you came to us--"

"I came to make sure you were all right," Jack replied, and, oh, he might look like a child, but in that instant Anne saw how much of a man her boy had become. And she felt so very proud. "I came to let you know I was all right. But I did not come to stay."

Thomas swallowed, then bowed his head, accepting. He took a breath. "A day or two amiss shouldn't hurt," he said. "I'll ask Master Rowling to keep an eye on things for me."

Anne beamed up at him.

"So," her husband said, forcing a smile, "shall we go visit your sister, and introduce you to her family? They've only ever heard stories of their uncle Jackson."

A much more delighted smile broke out on Jack's face. "I'd love to," he said, and went to fetch his staff.

"You can leave that here," Anne told him. "It won't be stolen - the village is safe."

Jack shook his head. "This has only left me once in three hundred years." His face darkened; she wondered, but feared to know, what memory was involved. But then he shook the darkness off. "It's a part of me, Mother, like my hand or my heart. I can't, and won't, let it go again."

"Well, then," she said, fetching her summer bonnet off its hook, "shall we go visiting?"

* * *

Burgess was definitely bigger than Jack remembered, and livelier. Children ran around laughing, or sat by their doors, or on logs, doing small handwork. A waft of heat and the clanging of metal-on-metal came from the smithy. And everywhere, everywhere, people went about their business.

Most didn't notice him, or paid him the scarcest attention. A few, though, paused. He wondered if his white hair was catching their notice. But then he heard, "Jackson?"

Stopping, he turned. A man, taller than Jack by half a head, with a neatly trimmed black beard, stood looking at him, surprise writ large across his face. "Yes...?" Jack asked, not knowing the other.

That got him a delighted laugh and a great hug that made him stiffen. "By God, it is you! Welcome home!" Drawing back, the stranger grinned at him, and some shift of the light or his features let Jack recognize him.

"Stanley?" he demanded, eyes wide. "You... you grew up!"

"Died in my sixties," the man reported proudly, though he didn't look above thirty. "Look at you! Not a day over eighteen! Where have you been? And why, pray tell, is your hair that color?"

"I've... I've been on Earth," Jack replied. "I got drafted." There was a blank look at that expression. He amended it to, "Someone pulled me out of that pond and turned me into a spirit. I take care of winter." There was no need to go into an explanation of the Man in the Moon. Particularly not with Stanley, who had always been far more Biblically inclined than Jack.

"Winter, you say?" Stanley asked, not seeming to have a problem with the concept. "Well, that would give explanation to your hair and eye colors."

"We're just going to visit Phillipa, Master Pritchard," Jack's father said. "Care to walk with us?"

Stanley looked in the opposite direction, then shrugged and fell in beside Jack. "Of course. I wouldn't miss this story for anything."

"There's not much to tell," Jack said, shrugging himself. "I bring winter, and try to get kids to have fun."

Stanley looked skeptical, and boy was that an expression Jack remembered. He opened his mouth to tease his old friend about his face getting stuck that way, when suddenly there was a woman running into the center square. She dragged a little girl by the hand, and the skirt of her dress was smouldering. "Fire!" she cried.

Jack called for the wind almost before his father and Stanley yelled "Buckets!" and "Water!", their voices overlapping one another.

The burning house, Jack saw from the air, was not at the center of town. But it was close, only the next row over, and as Jack watched, flames licked up out of its mud-daub chimney. They spread onto the roof.

It was summer here, and his powers had never had much effect against fire. But Jack had spent three centuries watching, and learning. Like a man, a fire needed two things to live. Food, and breath.

He couldn't do much to its breath except call the wind, and that would only spread the flames farther. But its food....

Jack dropped into a crouch on the far end of the house's roof. He took a breath, concentrating, then stood. Holding his staff in both hands, he slammed it to the shingles.

Ice crackled out, shooting across the roof, down the chimney, inside and out, encasing everything in a quarter-inch-thick ice sheet.

The fire hesitated, guttered, then died.

Jack couldn't help the icicles now dangling from the building's eaves, or whatever water damage the melting ice might cause. But the house itself was intact, and eventually only a few scorch marks would indicate its near-burning.

There was silence below him. Suddenly remembering his audience, Jack whirled, looking down. The adults could see him, how could he forget and be so obvious, _they could see him_ \--

His mother's face was a study in pride. As was his father's. Stanley was staring wide-eyed, but then he broke into a broad grin. "Jackson Frost indeed!" he called, laughing. "More like Jackson Ice!"

And then, like the villagers suddenly all realized who Jack was, they were all clapping and cheering Jack's name.

It was a disconcerting feeling, and even more discomforting when Jack realized that he wanted to hide. For all that he had spent centuries wanting _anyone_ to look at him, he didn't want _everyone_ looking at him. But he couldn't hide, not here, and he couldn't fly away without seeing Pippa, he just _couldn't_. So he steeled himself, and let the wind carry him back down to the ground, where the crowd of people were waiting for him.

* * *

Phillipa Austen sat at her loom, humming contentedly as she passed her shuttle through the weft threads, battened the fill, then passed the shuttle back through to her right hand. The wool cloth taking shape under her hands was warm and soft and the loveliest shade of cream. Properly dyed and fulled, it would make a winter dress.

Behind her, sitting at her spinning, Elizabeth, her eldest daughter, took up the thread of Phillipa's notes and wove them into a nonsense song. It was a fun little ditty, full of clever rhymes and an increasingly silly storyline, when it suddenly broke off into "Grandmother! Grandfather!" and the sound of the spinning wheel stopped.

Battening down the cloth one last time, Phillipa set down her shuttle and turned.

And stopped.

A young man stood in the doorway with her parents and daughter. He was staring at Phillipa like she was the last breath of hope he had before--

Her breath quickened.

_Before falling through ice,_ she made herself finish the thought, and it couldn't be him, it absolutely couldn't, he was in the living world--

"Pippa?" her brother asked, and something old and half-healed inside Phillipa Frost Austen broke. Shattered. Like pond ice.

"Jack?" she whispered, and she was ten again, running into his arms, crying. His arms wrapped around her, and he was crying too. And if his tears were cold, instead of hot, where they fell on her and soaked through her dress, she didn't notice.

Phillipa Frost had her brother back, and that was all that mattered.

* * *

"It's okay," Jack murmured to his sister. "It's okay, Pippa."

She looked up at him, brown eyes teary, and how weird was it that she was ten again when just a minute ago she'd been in her thirties? Time was apparently malleable in this place, and Mort really ought to put a warning label about that on it.

"You fell in--" his sister snuffled, and for the moment, Jack ignored their parents, and Stanley, and that girl who had to be Pippa's own daughter.

He knelt, making her taller than him. "I fell in," he agreed, his hands on her upper arms. "And that wasn't your fault. It wasn't anyone's fault. It just happened." Pippa sniffed again, and he dredged up a smile for her. "I'm not going to deny that it hurt, Pips. Drowning's not the best way to go. But you know what? I got a second chance, a new life, from what happened that day."

"What happened?"

Jack smiled at her, glanced a smile up to his parents as well. "There's a Man in the Moon, did you know that? And he really likes people who protect children. So he pulled me up out of that ice and gave me all the powers of winter, so that I could keep doing for other kids what I did for you." Jack held his hand open before his sister.

A snowflake, delicate and ethereal, formed above his palm. He solidified it, hardened it, and with that little twist of magic he'd learned from North, changed it so it would never melt. Wide brown eyes stared at Jack as he took Pippa's hand, turned it palm side up as well, and gave her the snowflake.

"It's... cold."

"Winter usually is. But it can be beautiful, too, and a lot of fun. You remember that, don't you?"

There was growing maturity in her eyes now, and Jack stood as his sister changed again, back to the woman she'd been when he entered the room. Her face was different, looking very like their mother's, and she was just a little taller than Jack himself. But her eyes were the same. Jack would have known her anywhere.

Pippa held the snowflake to her heart. "I remember," she said.


	5. Deathly Decision

**Shadowlands**  
Part 5: Deathly Decision  
by K. Stonham  
first released 25th April, 2013

Jack woke, for the first time in several centuries, in a bed. In his own bed. In his own home.

It was decidedly surreal.

Listening to the pre-dawn world outside the house (birds, horses, a faint high whistling of wind heard through the chimney) and inside the house (a soft creaking of the bed frame in his parents' room as one of them turned over in their sleep), he lay there for a minute, trying to get his bearings. Trying to decide how he felt about this. About being home again.

His feelings, Jack ended up concluding, were mixed. This was all so familiar, so comfortable, something he thought he'd never experience again. Yet at the same time, there was something jarring and discordant about it. It felt like... like trying to put on a favorite shirt that he'd outgrown. It was too tight, too constricting.

He wasn't this Jack Frost anymore. He wasn't a colonial boy. He was the spirit of winter, and a Guardian.

And he had no idea how to tell his family that.

His parents had their life here, with their friends and family. A life that had, for nearly two hundred and fifty years, not included him. They loved him, he had no doubt, and would welcome him here, fold him into their life with open arms, but... they didn't _need_ him.

And Pippa... his sister was grown, with a home of her own, and a husband, and seven children, four of whom had survived to adulthood and married, with families of _their_ own. One of her sons had moved to Boston and apparently been a prominent lawyer there. Before he'd been killed by British soldiers during the war.

But here, in this place, Jack's nephew was alive. As were his children, and their children, and their children, generations piling up on generations until the current day.

The afterlife, Jack was coming to understand, was like the layers of an onion, or the stacked pages of paper in a book. It was different for everyone. You ended up in the time you were happiest, surrounded by the people you loved best, doing the work you had enjoyed most. And everyone else ended up with the same, so though they overlapped, no two afterlives were completely identical. Each held just enough challenge to make existence worthwhile, but none of the bad stuff. There were things that could hurt you, yes. A falling tree could crush you, and you'd be injured. But you would eventually heal. Nothing here could kill you, could take you away from your pain forever, because here, no pain ran that deep.

It kind of blew his mind, and kind of made him uneasy.

Quietly, Jack pushed aside his frosted blanket, and stood, grabbing his staff. He snuck out the front door and let the wind carry him to the roof of his family's home. He sat there, on its peak, and watched the sun rise over colonial Burgess, thinking.

* * *

"No, left, left!" Mort shouted, trying to steer her riderbird through volume as well as well as the controller. It worked as well for her as it ever did for Jamie; he laughed as she bounced off the canyon wall on the right of the screen and he overtook her. She growled, thumbs mashing frantically until she caught up with him just before they both crossed the finish line.

"Yes!" Mort threw her arms in the air. "Number one! Finally!"

The hopper on the screen informed them that Mort had won a Magic Feather, and would they like to race again Y/N?

"We've got enough feathers now to trade for the magic carpet," Jamie said.

"That gets us to Argyar, right?"

"Yeah. Where we pick up our last party member."

"Right. So what's he like?"

" _She_ ," Jamie emphasized the gender, "is kick-ass. Nadalia is a warrior priestess who can drink any of the other characters under the tavern table."

"Do I sense a little crush, Bennett?"

"Ha. As if." Jamie would never, ever admit to Mort about scanning the internet for pictures of Nadalia cosplayers. Jack teasing him about it was bad enough.

Jamie glanced away from the television for a moment, looking at his window.

It had been two days. He wondered how Jack was doing. And when he'd be back.

* * *

Phillipa spent the day out in the sunshine, in the company of her brother. Her hands kept busy with a drop spindle, as did all three of her daughters'. They, and what seemed like half of Burgess' children and no few of the adults, sat in a circle around her brother as he held storyteller's court. Hands kept industrious while minds were taken on flights of fancy.

It was, Phillipa thought with a smile, entirely nostalgic.

"Now, this fellow," Jack said, creating a new ice sculpture in one hand, "is the Easter Bunny." His brow furrowed momentarily, in a way that Phillipa had already come to realize meant he was hardening the ice, making it unmelting. As soon as he was done, he handed it off to the nearest child, Jeremiah Collins, who hastily set aside his whittling to accept the figurine and examine it before passing it around.

"Papa said you caught the Easter Bunny once," Sarah Pritchard said, clearly doubtful.

Jack grinned at her. "Oh, he told you that, did he?" Sarah nodded. "Well, that's the absolute truth, and Aster - the Easter Bunny's full name is E. Aster Bunnymund, but I haven't found out yet what the 'E' is for - has fallen for the exact same snare at least once since." Jack grinned. "Thus proving that you can't beat a classic slip snare, no matter how smart your opponent thinks he is.

"Now, Bunny," Jack continued, nodding at the ice statue as it made its way around, "is faster than just about anyone. And he's not afraid of any kind of height. But he _hates_ flying, so unless he gets distracted, he ends up leaving claw marks on North's sleigh...."

Her brother, Phillipa came to realize as Jack talked on, telling the village children about the adventures of his comrades-in-arms, had covered nearly all of the Guardians. He had talked about the Tooth Fairy and one of her little helpers whom Jack had named Baby Tooth; he had described a curious little man named the Sandman; his voice had contained a touch of hero worship as he discussed Nicholas St. North, who was the same as Sinterklaas; and now, he convulsed his listeners with laughter as he told them of the idiosyncracies of the man-beast called the Easter Bunny. The only one of the Guardians whose exploits Jack had not detailed was himself, Jack Frost the winter-bringer.

She had a feeling she knew why.

Her fingers tangled in the growing thread, and Phillipa momentarily lost the train of her brother's story. But she forced herself to straighten and focus again.

Jack wasn't staying, and wanted to give the village children new stories to retell over long winter nights, ones that did not involve the bringer of winter himself. Ones that did not involve a playmate who would not stay to play.

In a way, she admired him for it. Yet at the same time, Phillipa wished she didn't understand him so well. Why did he love the children of that other world better than his own blood kin? Burgess was his _home_. He belonged here, with them. Why would he not simply stay here?

"And this," Jack said with another grin, crafting another ice figure, "is Jamie Bennett. Who, like all of you, is from Burgess. And he's mortal, so maybe someday you'll get to meet him. He's the bravest kid I've ever met, and has absolutely no fear of the Boogeyman. But the Boogeyman, you see, has a healthy fear of Jamie. Because anyone who's not scared, and who can get others to not be scared with him, can stand up to darkness and turn it into light...."

* * *

That second night, as they walked side-by-side from her house to their parents', Pippa said something Jack had never expected from her. "Why do you love them better than us?" she asked.

Jack blinked at the soft question. "Love who better?"

"The mortal children."

Jack stopped walking, surprised. "Better?" he asked. He shook his head. "I don't love them better, Pips. I just love them different."

"Then why won't you stay?" She turned and looked at him, her expression pleading. "You could be happy here, Jack! Our whole family could be back together again."

Jack took in her expression, sighed, and looked away. He remembered what his mother had told him about Pippa blaming herself for his death. Apparently it was something she still hadn't let go of. Not even with him here for a visit. "Pippa, you don't _need_ me here. Jamie and the other mortal kids... they do. They need someone to make the ice strong enough, keep the storms survivable. They need someone to protect them from the things in the shadows."

"Do you love him better than me?" she demanded, face angry. "Your Jamie? Is that why you won't stay?"

Jack stared, incredulous. She thought he loved Jamie more than he loved her? "No! Of course I don't. You're my sister. But he's like my brother. I know Jamie's going to grow up someday soon, and forget about me. And that's going to hurt. But just because children grow up and stop needing Guardians doesn't mean they don't deserve protection before then. He needs my protection. You don't."

"But I do need you! Jack, this work is going to kill you eventually. Isn't that what you said happened to Katherine and Nightlight? Isn't dying for someone else once already enough?"

Jack just stood there open-mouthed for a minute, looking at his sister. Slowly, he closed his mouth. "I remember you getting like this before," he said quietly. "I remember after the Turners moved into town, you got so mad at me for looking after little Lizzy while her mother was sick and her father was away. Remember that, Pippa?"

His sister shut her mouth and looked away, expression mulish.

"You are my sister," Jack said, "and I love you very much. But I don't tell you that you married the wrong man, or made some questionable choices in your life, and you do not get to tell me that what I do, what I love, is not what I should be doing. Do you understand that, Pippa?"

She didn't answer his question. Instead, she asked plaintively, "Why can't you just stay?"

He felt his voice harden. He really didn't want to do this, but he could see that he was not getting through to her. "I died for you once, Pips. And I do not regret that for a second, because you grew up to be a fine, upstanding woman, with a wonderful family around you. But you do not get to tell me to die for you again."

Her head snapped around to stare at him, shocked.

"Dying again is the only way I stay here, Pippa," Jack said quietly, "and I have unfinished business in the living world, people I still need and want to live for. They need me there, and, as someone once said, all that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. I refuse to take the easy way out, and do nothing. If I die again fighting the good fight, so be it." He paused, to see if she had any response to give, but she did not. "I'll be leaving after the picnic tomorrow afternoon. What's left between us at that point is up to you."

Turning away, Jack let the wind carry him home, leaving his sister standing in the street behind him.

* * *

**Author's Note:** The Rainbow Quest gameplay was in no way inspired by watching others play the chocobo racing minigame in FFX. Really. It wasn't. :) And, sorry for taking so long to get back to this. I was stumped on what needed to happen until I just started sledgehammering my way through the words and realized halfway through that Pippa was not too happy about Jack leaving her again. I know that she's usually portrayed as his sweet, beloved younger sister, but real people are more complex than that, and she had a whole life (and afterlife) during which she grew and changed. Jack's sacrifice made a big impression on her, and shaded her entire life. Her point is understandable; she just wants her brother back.


	6. Deathly Departure

Jamie sat on his bed, looking at his window. There was frost on it, but it was just a formless mass, not one of Jack's pictorial drawings or artistic fractals.

"Where are you, Jack?" he whispered.

Above him, unknown to the mortal teenager, Death stood on his roof, scythe in hand. She looked in the same direction as Jamie, toward Burgess' Jackson Pond. She, too, frowned.

"Don't make a liar out of me, Frost," she said before turning away in a swirl of black cloak.

**Shadowlands**  
Part 6: Deathly Departure  
by K. Stonham  
first released 25th December 2014

Abandoning his bed for something more comfortable, Jack spent the bulk of his night on the roof of his parents' home. It wasn't, he mused, that the roof was particularly more comfortable than his corncob mattress. But he'd been sleeping rough for three hundred years. The indoors made him antsy. Even in this warmth of summer, he wanted to be where the wind could reach him.

Hoarfrost, thick and soft and cool, spread beneath him. If he actually slept, he knew, then by morning there would be a thick snow covering the roof and icicles hanging from the eaves.

He wasn't sure if his parents would be proud of that, of their son's unique abilities, or embarrassed, or admonishing. So he kept his wintery power reined in to something that would melt in the early morning sun. And he thought.

He hadn't meant to be so harsh with his sister earlier. But he _couldn't_ stay. Not even for Pippa.

She didn't need him. She loved him, she wanted him here, but she didn't _need_ him.

Jamie, on the other hand... well, all too soon Jamie would probably grow up and forget Jack like his friends were already starting to. And that was going to hurt. But there were other kids out there, hundreds of thousands of them, and they needed Jack Frost too. They needed snowballs and fun times and special magic happy snowflakes to help them laugh in the face of their fears.

And, too, he was part of a team. Tooth needed him to drag her out into the field once in a while. Sandy would be ticked to lose a playmate. North tended to lose himself in the day to day grind of work and wonder, forgetting to actually experience the world. And Bunny... Jack had no illusions that Bunny wouldn't keep his word and storm the shadowlands themselves to drag him back to the living world.

Above Jack, delicate white flakes began to form and drift gently to the ground. Far, far beyond them the moon glowed.

But it wasn't _his_ moon. Even when the Man in the Moon had spent three hundred years silent, unwilling or unable to answer Jack's questions, pleas, and accusations, he'd always felt the gentle, watching presence of his patron. Here in death, there was no such thing. This moon was an empty hunk of rock in the sky the way scientific humans believed. Or it might even be just an illusion; Jack didn't know how this place worked, after all.

But either way, no matter that his family was here, this wasn't where he belonged. With a sigh, Jack closed his eyes, accepting that. He then pushed himself off the roof and drifted, light as a snowflake, to the ground. He quietly opened the door and snuck back inside, going to his bed. No need to upset his parents by letting them wake in the morning to discover his bed empty.

Staff snuggled by his side, he closed his eyes and let himself fall asleep, enjoying the feeling, for one last night, of being in his parents' home.

Not much later, the door opened silently again, a dark figure sneaking in the cabin. It paused, looking around, then headed for Jack's bed. Long, delicate fingers rifled through his hoodie's pocket, and came away with a small object. Then, as silently as it had come, the figure left the cabin, the door closing on the sleeping Frost family.

* * *

Her breath rough, Phillipa Frost Austen hurried to the pond where her brother had drowned on a long-ago winter's day. She kept glancing over her shoulder, making sure she wasn't being followed as she scurried through moonlight and shadows. Clutched in one fist was the silver earring that Jack had said was his token to enter and leave the lands of the dead.

If he could use it to get in, she could use it to get out. And then...

Her feet skittered down the slope to the pond. Shucking her dark cloak and shoes on the shore, Phillipa tucked the token into a pocket, then waded into the water. She swam through the dark water until she was about where Jack had been, that day. She hovered there, treading water, for a minute. Then, before she could lose her nerve, she filled her lungs and dove down.

The pond was surprisingly deep for its size. Once, they'd thought that was why they'd never been able to retrieve her brother's body. Now she knew better.

Deeper and deeper she swam, the water growing darker and darker. She could feel the pressure on her ears, pushing in. Phillipa gritted her teeth and ignored the burning in her lungs. She went further down. The water became colder, biting into her like winter ice.

Finally, she could see a dim light ahead of her. Moonlight glowed through thick ice. There was a brighter patch which had to be a hole in the ice. But her air was gone. Knife pain bit into Phillipa, twinned with panic. She was so close. She couldn't fail now!

With the last of her consciousness, she fought for the opening, kicking as the darkness narrowed in.

Her fingers caught on the edge of the ice. She managed to pull herself up, face breaking the surface of the water. She sucked in a huge breath of life-giving air. As the black-edged world returned to her, she hauled herself onto the thick ice, coughing, choking, shivering. Her teeth chattered as she managed to stand, arms wrapped around herself, sodden dress heavy on her frame. The ice burned through her stockings, them clinging to its surface as she took a step forward.

She glanced back at the dark hole in the ice. And remembered Jack going through.

Suddenly terrified, she ran for the shore.

Up the slope ahead of her, light shone through the windows of a house.

Cold sinking into her mortal flesh, teeth chattering as the winter wind didn't even pause on its way through her, Phillipa Austen made for warmth, safety, and life.

* * *

Jane Bennett jumped at the sudden banging on her front door. Setting down her coffee, she paused the television and uncurled from the sofa.

"Mama?" her daughter asked.

"Dunno," Jane replied. "Stay here, Sophie. I'll see who it is."

"Maybe it's an elf," the seven-year-old said, turning back to her book. "Or a unicorn."

"Or a fairy?" Jane asked, smiling.

"Don't be silly, Mama. Fairies use the windows."

Shaking her head, Jane could only be amused. She had thought that her son's vivid imagination was unique, but as Sophie got older, her wild stories were beginning to echo Jamie's. Apparently it was genetic. Jane could only assume that they'd gotten it from their father.

She opened the door to winter.

A dark-haired woman about her own age stood there, shuddering, soaked, ice crystals beginning to form in her hair and on her dress. "P-please," she said. "I f-fell in the p-pond."

Jane gaped. Then she pulled the woman inside, closing the door. "Come with me," she said, leading the woman upstairs. "We've got to get you warm." As they passed her daughter, curious green eyes now peering over the back of the sofa, she added, "Soph, you stay here. Or better yet, get me some towels!"

* * *

Jack woke in the thin light of early dawn as his mother poked at the banked fire on the hearth. He stretched, then tumbled out of bed. After straightening his sheets he headed out to help his father with the animals. Linen, Flax, Whimsy, Snow... he could name each of the sheep in the paddock, dumb things that they were. And they seemed to recognize him, butting up eagerly into Jack's hand. And then there was old Rocks, his father's mule, whose full name was Dumb As Rocks. But Jack was quicker now than he had been, and dodged Rocks' rear hooves easily before whirling to give the stubborn beast a good whack on its skull with his shepherd's crook. The blow brought Rocks up short, and the beast paused and blinked at him before edging away. Jack grinned, pleased to have finally bested his old adversary.

After the morning chores, breakfast passed quietly enough, Jack making a few locked-state snowflakes for his parents to hang in their windows once he was gone, while his father ate and his mother bustled about, making food for the afternoon's picnic. He was working on his third design when the cabin's door opened.

"Elizabeth?"

He looked up at his mother's voice to see his sister's daughter, the one who had only lived to sixteen, standing in the doorway. She was wringing her hands and her face was drawn. Her brown eyes met Jack's. "Mother's missing," Elizabeth said. She swallowed. "Uncle Jack, can you help me find her?"

* * *

The woman at the house - her name was Jane - had hustled Phillipa upstairs and into a small, curious room whose purpose was made clear when she twisted a silver dial and water gushed into a long white tub. She'd helped Phillipa, whose fingers were cold-numbed, out of her dress, and into the hot water, then left her alone, the door just slightly ajar. The blonde little girl appeared shortly afterward with a heaping stack of colorful towels, deposited them on the stool in the corner, then left, her green eyes suspicious on Phillipa all the while.

When Phillipa finally felt warm again through to her core, she stood and reached for the towels. How did Jack stand that cold? How could he _love_ it the way he clearly did, that freezing death that had taken him from her?

Beauty? Of course there was beauty in death. In cold. In winter. But there was no warmth, no love. She needed to make him see that. She needed to break his false ties to this mortal world and bring him home, where he belonged. With his family. With the people who loved him.

And to do that, she needed to find this Jamie Bennett of his.

Rubbing the water from her skin, Phillipa paused at the ghost of a reflection, caught from the corner of her eye. Turning, she she approached what she'd thought was fogged glass. She swiped at it with a towel, and gaped.

A silver mirror reflected her, clearer and purer than any she'd ever seen. Her hands lifted to her face. She looked... thirty, she decided. The age she was in the shadowlands. Not the old age she'd died at, which she'd half been expecting, nor the ten she'd been when Jack had fallen through the ice, which had been its own kind of death for her.

Thirty, and comely.

She raised fingers to the mirror, traced her features. Looked into reflected brown eyes. Her eyes. Jack's eyes, as they had been and ought to be.

She saw them harden with resolve.

* * *

By midday, the search for Pippa had expanded to include most of Burgess' village.

"This is my fault," Jack said. He shook his head. "She and I fought last night, about whether I belonged here or in the living world."

"Jackson." His father's hand landed on his shoulder. "This is not your fault. This is hers. Whatever foolishness Pippa's gotten herself into, she did so of her own volition. Don't argue with me," he cut Jack off, shaking his head. "She lived a long, full life, and whatever decision she makes, she makes it with the experience of a grown woman behind her. She is no child, and is responsible for her own actions. Just as you always have been for yours."

Jack hesitated, biting his lip. Then, accepting his father's wisdom, he nodded his head.

Just as little Chastity Palmer came running up, breathing hard, clutching something dark to her chest. Panting, she held it up.

Jack's father took it, shook it out. His eyes widened. "This is Pippa's cloak. Where was it?"

"On the log," Chastity beat out, "by the side, of Jackson Pond."

Jack's eyes widened, met his father's. "Come on," he said, and grabbed his father's hand, calling mentally for the wind.

"Whoa - Jack!" his father protested, grip tightening as serious wind, not the weak summer breezes, tore down from the sky and pulled them into the air.

"Go!" Jack told the wind, and in moments they were setting down by the side of the pond he'd drowned in once upon a time.

"Lord have mercy, Jackson," his father gasped whitely, slumping to the ground.

Jack winced. "Sorry," he apologized.

But then Thomas Frost surprised his son by laughing. "And that's how you travel all the time? I can see how you like it. Though I think I'll keep my feet on the ground."

Jack shared a grin with his father, then turned his attention back to more serious things. He knelt by the log. There were childish feet trampling the signs, but he'd spent long years learning to read tracks.

And Pippa's led directly to the water.

"Why would she...?" he wondered.

"She hates this pond," his father agreed.

Then Jack's eyes widened. His hand dove into his hoodie pocket.

And came away empty.

He stared at the pond, then turned back to his father. He felt white, ghostly.

"She stole my token," he said. "Pippa's gone back to the living world."


	7. Deathly Deliverance

Jane had given Phillipa a robe to wear while her own clothing dried, and had pressed a mug of hot sweet drink into her hands. Kindly, she had not yet asked any questions beyond "Is there anyone I should call?" To which Phillipa had just shaken her head.

She had just raised her hands to take another sip of the hot "cocoa" when the house's front door opened, and--

"Mom, I'm back!" the boy called before he noticed Phillipa sitting there.

She felt her heart catch. This couldn't be so easy, could it?

Jamie Bennett stood before her.

 

 **Shadowlands**  
Part 7: Deathly Deliverance  
by K. Stonham  
first released 6th January, 2019

 

"I'm going to kill her," Jack muttered to himself, hands strangling his staff. "I'm _going_ to kill her." Then he slumped forward, pressing his forehead against his staff, eyes screwed shut. His breathing sounded ragged, even to himself. "What are you _doing_ , Pips?"

"Jackson?" his mother asked softly. Her voice held an edge.

Jack straightened, opening his eyes. Around him, he saw, there was a six-foot radius of thick snow, the summer grass buried as frost snaked even farther out, toward all the villagers who had come running but now stood a wary distance from Jack.

He was a Guardian. He needed to get a grip.

...His little sister was on the other side of a door he couldn't open, and he had no idea what she thought she was up to.

Jack ruthlessly forced the panic down. He was a Guardian, and there was nothing he could do to open Death's door right now. He _was_ a Guardian, and he _would_ act like it.

Which meant he needed to pull his power back in to his skin, stop worrying his parents and their neighbors, and let summer _be_ summer.

(He knew why summer spirits didn't like him. All he could do was wreck their season.)

Taking a measured breath, Jack forced himself to calm and focus. He looked unseeingly into the mid-distance, feeling the chill of winter around him and easing it back, pulling it up into himself like the cold was yarn he was rewinding into a ball.

It was sticky work. It was so much easier for him to make things cold than to pull the cold out of them. Five years ago, he couldn't have done this. Even now it was difficult. But slowly, grudgingly, the chill left the grass and the air. His frost and snow began to melt, insultingly fast.

Jack flexed his fingers, worked the tension kinks out. "Sorry," he muttered.

His mother stepped beside him, one hand on his arm. "It's all right," she said. She looked beyond him, at the pond. "What is Pippa doing?" she asked.

Jack shook his head. "I wish I knew."

* * *

Jane looked out the window, at the snow that was worryingly thick and fast. The plows would be along come morning, of course, but right now she wouldn't want to be out there. Well, more allowance money for Jamie, shoveling the driveway and walk. "You can't go out in this," she said to Phillipa. "You can stay here tonight. Tomorrow I'll take you home. You're sure you don't want to call someone?"

The shorter woman looked at her a silent moment, then shook her head. "No. Thank you. You are very kind."

Jane shrugged. "People helped me when I needed it. Things like that should always be paid forward. Now, I don't have a guest room, but the sofa folds out. I hope that will be okay? We've got some clean sheets and extra quilts."

Phillipa smiled. Even smiling, though, she looked sad. "That would be most gracious. Please, may I help?"

* * *

The time swept on toward the midnight hour. Most of the strange lights of this house had been doused, though some things yet glowed: the hearth, faery boxes that showed changing numbers, other devices whose purpose Phillipa could not comprehend. Yet still she waited, warm in this too-soft bed that had been unfolded, magically stored within the "sofa."

Finally, all was quiet and had been so for long enough that she felt safe in rising.

She found her own shift and dress, dry now, in the small room off the kitchen, and donned them, leaving her borrowed night-gown atop the large white metal boxes there. Returning to the kitchen, she moved silently by the device-lights to where she had seen Jane place knives earlier. She hefted them each, finding the one that suited her hand best. She tested its blade with her thumb. It was pleasingly sharp.

Moving to the stairs, she went up them carefully, slowly. She tested each step before trusting it with her weight. At the top of the stairs was a landing, leading to four doors. One was open; it was the room with the washing-tub that she had bathed in earlier. Another door had a decorative plaque that proclaimed it to be "Sophie's Room." The remaining two doors were plain.

As quietly as she could, Phillipa turned the knob to the right-hand door and eased it open.

Beyond, she could see Jane asleep in a bed.

Closing the door again, Phillipa took two stealthy steps to the other, and opened it.

There lay her quarry, bunched up beneath quilts of his own. Beyond him, his window stood ajar, letting in the cold winter air.

Footsteps as soft as may be, Phillipa skirted the bed and closed the window, shutting out the hated winter that had taken Jack from her and never given him back. She moved beside Jamie Bennett's bed and looked down at him.

He, too, had taken Jack from her.

But if she took him to Jack... took him to the shadowlands... there Jack would stay.

He would stay for her, and for his Jamie, and her family would never be broken apart again.

The knife gleamed by the folds of her skirt.

* * *

Jamie had spent five years with the occasional nighttime visitor (okay, always Jack Frost, but it was still only _occasionally_ , it wasn't like Jack stopped by _every_ night or even every week) popping into his bedroom for midnight adventures or just brotherly bonding. So even fast asleep he had a pretty good sense of when someone else was in his room. And barring a recent brush with dreamsand, he was pretty good at rousing himself when he had someone lurking over him about to wake him up via either snowball or repeated shoulder pokings.

That said, something felt _wrong_ as Jamie surfaced, and he muzzily tried to figure out what it was. By the time his eyes were blinking open, he realized it was _quiet_ in his room. He couldn't hear the soft outdoor noises that an open window always brought him. He couldn't hear the wind.

And Jack would never be separated from the wind.

Jamie's eyes snapped open and latched onto the shadow standing in his room.

He recognized the stranger his mom had taken in. What was she doing in his room? She stepped forward. Her hand rose. The chef's knife in it caught the glow of his nightlight, and _gleamed_ \--

\--before she was caught herself, a sickle blade suddenly glowing silver-white at her throat.

Mort stepped out from the shadows of Jamie's room.

"You have stolen my token and left my realm," Death said quietly to the woman as Jamie's heart thundered hard in his chest. "I remember you, Phillipa. As I remember all."

The woman's eyes were wide. She stood frozen.

"I see you remember me, too." Mort's voice held no tone as she asked, "What do you think you are doing here, tonight?"

The woman swallowed. The arm holding the knife lowered, until it was by her side. "I-- I was going to take him to the shadowlands. So Jack would stay."

"Jack?" Jamie demanded. "What about Jack?"

His question was ignored. "You were going to take upon yourself that role which is mine," Mort said. Her sickle was still at the woman's throat. "I could choose to take offense at that, Phillipa. And should I so choose... that which I reap twice ceases to exist in any world."

It was hard to see in the dim of night, but Jamie thought the woman went even paler. "No, please--"

"I will ask you only one more question, Phillipa." Mort circled around to where the woman could see her. She was taller than the woman. The scythe withdrew, was replaced by a guiding finger. "Look into the boy's eyes. What do you see?"

The woman looked helplessly at Death, then looked at Jamie again. He was still sitting up in his bed, not having moved since waking to someone about to murder him. "I-- I don't--" Then she stopped, her eyes widening. Her hands flew to her mouth. The knife clattered to the floor. "He has his eyes," she said.

"Very good," Mort said. Her dark velvet tone eased. "I believe you owe the boy an apology, Phillipa."

"Yes, yes." She was nodding now. "I'm sorry," the woman told Jamie. "I'm so sorry, I didn't know... I just, I just wanted Jack to stay. He loves you so much, I thought if you were _there_ instead of _here_ , he'd stay. But I didn't know."

"You didn't know _what_?" Jamie asked before any of the supernatural people in his room could just vanish without giving him any answers.

(He had had it happen before.)

With a glance at Mort for permission, the woman approached him. Her hand (the one that had been holding the knife a moment before) touched Jamie's cheek. She felt warm, human. Her eyes shone with tears. "You have his eyes," she repeated. "Jack's eyes, from when he was human. I'm so sorry, great-great-grandson."

And then she and Mort were gone.

* * *

"All this panic over one little earring," a voice said behind Jack. He whirled, staff at the ready, only to have it caught in a steady pale hand. Mort raised an eyebrow at him. "Really, Frost."

"My lady!" Behind Jack, his mother bowed her head, dipping a curtsy. Everyone Jack could see did likewise.

He ignored them. Behind Mort stood Pippa, looking upset. Looking like she had every time she'd done something wrong and learned a hard lesson from it. "Pips?"

She met his eyes, then looked back down at the ground. "I'm sorry," she said. "I'm sorry, Jack. I didn't mean to. I just didn't want you to leave us again."

"Pippa," Jack growled, and was surprised to find that he was angry at her, truly angry, " _what did you do_?"

"Nothing irremediable," Mort said, glancing at Pippa. "Fortunately."

"I... I was going to bring him here," Pippa said, then caught herself. "No. I was going to kill him," she said, looking up at Jack. "So you would stay here. Because if he was here too--"

Jack suddenly felt pale. "Jamie?" he whispered.

Pippa nodded.

Panic and rage warred, turning Jack's breath ragged. And he knew, he just _knew_ , he was about to do something he'd regret--

His mother's hand touched his arm. "Phillipa," she said, like she couldn't believe what she'd just heard.

"Phillipa," said their father from behind Jack, and that was the most disappointed Jack had ever heard Thomas Frost. "How could you?"

"Mother," whispered Pippa's daughter.

All around them, Jack heard murmurs of the other villagers.

"I'm _sorry_ ," Pippa said brokenly, her tears staining the earth.

Jack closed his eyes, let his breath go.

He opened his eyes again.

"I don't love him more than you," he said, looking at his sister. "I can love you both, and it's different. He's like my little brother, and I have to take care of him. He still needs that. You don't, Pippa."

"I know," she whispered. "I know that now. I'm so sorry, Jack."

"Are you ever going to do anything else like this again?" he asked, earning himself an odd look from their parents because how many times had _he_ been the one being asked those words?

"No."

Jack sighed, let the anger wash from him. "Then come here."

Pippa ran to his arms, still crying and shaking with the knowledge of what she'd almost done, almost become. Jack closed his arms around her, and their parents' arms around them, and then family and friends and neighbors, in an ever-widening circle of embraces.

From the middle of the hug-circle, Jack looked up, and somehow still managed to meet Mort's eyes.

She gave him a small smile. "Love makes people do strange things sometimes," Death said, and then was gone.

"Jack?" Pippa said in a small voice.

He looked back at his sister. "Yeah?"

"This is yours." She pulled a small silver earring out of her pocket. "I'm sorry I stole it."

Jack took Death's token back from his sister. "Don't do it again, Pips."

* * *

The village picnic ended up happening as planned, even if it was much more subdued than expected... at least until Jack rolled his eyes and packed together a snowball from nothing. With a smirk, he blew on it, blew magic into it, making the snowball glow winter-blue. Throwing it into the air, he launched himself up and followed, striking the ball with his staff. It exploded into thousands of glittering blue snowflakes that rained down on the crowd. Everywhere, there was sudden laughter and joy and eyes lighting up with fun.

"Your magic?" his father asked, looking around at everyone suddenly having a much better time.

"My center," Jack replied, smiling as he landed. "It's what I put into the world, what I protect. It's... me."

"Surprising absolutely no one who ever knew you," said Stanley Pritchard, stopping beside Jack. "I'll miss you, Jack."

"I'll miss you, too," Jack said, clasping Stanley's forearm. "Though," he said, considering, "I'm not going to be _completely_ gone."

"What do you mean?"

"Well," Jack said with a shrug, "I'm pretty sure I was told something about being able to see loved ones in reflections on All Saints' Day...."

Stanley's eyes widened and he stared at Jack for a long second. "By God, you're right!" he said with a laugh, clapping Jack on the back. "I'd stopped looking after my last grandchild came here. But no reason why we can't all use that to check in on you!" Laughing, he wandered away. "I'll be looking for you, Jack!"

"Be seeing you, Stanley," Jack murmured.

The feast went on for hours, people excusing themselves to do necessary chores, then coming back. Pippa, Jack was pleased to see, was not being ostracized, but rather was being more taken care of than before. Even her husband was being more solicitous.

But eventually it was dark and not even the torches and bonfires could disguise sleepy children yawning. Jack sighed, wishing the evening could go on forever, but knowing it couldn't.

"Time to go?" his father asked quietly.

Jack nodded. "Yeah."

He got a hand on either shoulder. "Thank you for coming to us," Thomas Frost said. Then, "I am so very, very proud of you, Jackson." And a hug.

Inside his father's arms, Jack closed his eyes momentarily, blinking back tears. All he'd wanted for so long.... "Thank you, Father," he said roughly, hands fisting in his father's shirt.

He collected embraces from his mother, and his horde of nieces and nephews going out several generations, and old friends, and finally....

"Pippa," he said.

She just looked at him. Then she hugged him. "Thank you for saving my life," she whispered.

Jack held his little sister and breathed in, realizing all he had accomplished with that one act. "I love you," he told her, then stepped away. "Be good," he told her.

" _You_ be good!" she shot back.

"Who, me?" he asked with a smirk.

"Yes, you! You _always_ play tricks!"

He grinned. "Wouldn't be Jack Frost if I didn't," he said, and, staff in hand, let the wind take him into the air. It pulled him out over the pond. The water was black and glassy beneath him. He looked back once at the villagers, at Burgess of the shadowlands, and waved.

It was time to go back where he belonged.

Jack dove.

* * *

It was cold, and it was dark, but Jack wasn't scared.

At least not until he touched the ice.

The pond's surface was thick and the ice was solid. The hole he had made had frozen over. There was no way out. 

Jack's chest suddenly felt too tight. His eyes flared wide. Knives stabbed at his lungs. He had no more air.

He banged on the ice. Water blocking his ears, he could barely hear the sound.

He had made the pond too safe, the ice too thick. He couldn't break it.

He wanted to panic. He nearly did.

But the silver spiderweb earring clutched in his hand bit into his palm, reminding him that he wasn't a mortal drowning in this pond again....

He was Jack Frost.

And he was ice's master.

* * *

The pond exploded, water and ice raining down as a figure glowing blue burst forth from the surface, momentum pulling him high into the air, where he hovered, taking a deep breath.

Morticia calmly sidestepped the ice chunk that would have hit her stomach, and waited until Jack Frost drifted back to land on the surface of his pond. He looked at the carnage around him. The whole surface of the pond was gone, and he stood only on the thinnest skim of ice that formed naturally under his bare feet. "Whoops," he muttered, then looked up and saw her.

His expression was unreadable as he walked across the water to her. "Did you find what you needed?" Morticia asked.

He hesitated, then nodded. "I think so. Thank you." The hand not holding his staff unfolded, revealing her earring. Morticia took it back, hooking it into her ear. In a flare of black cloak, she turned to go.

"Hey, Mort," Jack called out from behind her.

She turned back.

"Does anyone there look for you on All Saints' Day?"

She felt a thin trickle of sadness, but it was muted. It had been so long. "Not anymore, Frost. Those I have to reap twice... cease to exist."

She could hear his intake of breath across the distance. She waited for him to ask about it. But he didn't. Instead, "So what does that mean for me, someday?"

Morticia glanced up at the moon and remembered the game they had played. It had taken three days, and his victory had been so narrow. But Tsar Lunar had thought Jack Frost's life worth risking everything for. "It means nothing. When your time comes, you go home, like everyone else."

He looked shocked.

"I never reaped you, Jack Frost," Death told him quietly, and left.

* * *

Reeling, Jack didn't know what to think.

(Bunny had said he had a pulse.)

He re-iced his pond, making himself pay attention to it and do a good, thick job of replacing the ice he'd shattered.

(Mort said she had never reaped him.)

If he wasn't really dead after all....

Jack let out a deep breath, and checked the ice one more time, testing it with his feet, thumping it with his staff. "Good and solid," he said, then let the wind take him. It didn't carry him far, just up the slope and over the road to Jamie's window, which was left open, as always, for Jack.

Jack swallowed, pushed the window wider ajar.

He just needed to check that Jamie was all right, that whatever Pippa had done hadn't been too bad....

He was not expecting the tackle-hug he got the instant he stepped inside.

"Hey! Whoa!" Jack flailed for balance.

"Where have you _been_?!" Jamie, wrapped up in a blanket, burst out.

"The shadowlands, remember?"

"I almost got killed by a crazy lady, but Mort stopped her, and then she called me great-great-grandson, then they vanished, and I want to know what's going on!" Jamie demanded.

Jack almost fell. "Pippa said _what_?!" Jack demanded back.

"She said I had your eyes," Jamie told him.

His sister had said _what_?! Which meant Jamie was.... 

Jack ran a hand through his hair, feeling a bit dazed. More than he already had been, even. "Let's sit down and compare notes," Jack told him. "Because I'm running on one too many shocks right now, and," he said, looking at his blanket-swathed honorary brother (...his ever-so-great-nephew?), "I think so are you."

"Right." Jamie sat down on his bed, and looked around, clearly trying to get his thoughts in order. Eventually, "Can we do this with some cocoa?" he asked plaintively.

"Yes," Jack said decisively, and they decamped downstairs to the kitchen.

* * *

Some hours later, fortified by chocolate and marshmallows, they had exchanged stories and figured things out.

("They can revive people who've drowned in freezing water, didn't you know that, Jack?")

("I think you mean 'Uncle Jack'.")

("Rack off, as Bunny would say.").

"See, I knew we were family," Jamie said drowsily, leaning on Jack's shoulder, the both of them sitting in the downstairs window seat. "Knew it from the day I met you."

Jack shifted so he was better supporting Jamie, one arm around the teenager as he finally fell asleep. "Yeah. Family," he said softly, looking out the window at the night sky, where the storm had cleared away and the full moon shone down brightly, smiling.

Jack smiled back.

* * *

**Author's Notes:** I have to dedicate this final chapter to the anonymous reviewer on fanfiction.net whose review ended with "even tho, ya know, this is never getting updated ever again and whatever". Which, given that the last update was just over four years previous, was a fair judgement. I have two very active little boys who are not yet in school, and getting sentences and paragraphs and whole chapters written around that obstacle has often seemed an insurmountable task. But somehow that comment got under my skin and got my fire burning again. Spite, as they say, can be a powerful motivator. So, three very late nights of writing later, here is the final chapter, mostly as I'd always planned it to be. A few glorious surprises crept in, reminding me of why I've always loved writing. Thank you, anonymous commenter, for leaving me words that I needed to find my way back. And thank you to everyone who never gave up hope on me returning someday.


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